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2012 Mini Countryman Cooper S
So British. The Mini Countryman Cooper S is for people who want a Mini, but don't. The Chrysler PT Cruiser called, they want their idea back. ENGLAND! NOSTALGIA... Mini of North America would have fitted fiberglass bowler hats to the roof of the Countryman if they thought they could get away with it. Whoops. I got the year wrong. It's a 2012 Transcript The Mini Countryman is a Mini in the same way that Top Gear America is Top Gear. --- INTRO SONG by THE ROMAN It's a brand new Regular Car Review, And if this country's filled with Countrymen then we're all doomed... --- MONOLOGUE by MR REGULAR 2012 Mini Countryman Cooper S. Let's get one thing straight: this Countryman's 1.6-liter four-banger needs that turbo to boost the power plant up to 181 horsepower because this Brit has become chubbier than Stephen Fry at the end of his American holiday where he shot a .44 magnum, jacked up his arm and binged on holopgies and chili fries. Okay, elephant in the room, the owner of this Countryman is a construction inspector. That's what that light is all about. Explaining the Countryman is fruitless if we don't first explain the Mini's history. The original Mini is the result of the fuel shortage caused by the Suez crisis in 1956. Petrol was rationed in the UK and sales of large cars slumped like a promising semi gone flaccid. And the Mini thrived in that environment and beget many Mulatto children, the result of style and economy frantically copulating. It was that overproductive womb that birthed the Countryman and left a trailing sun-bleached umbilical cord that nearly five decades later still has not been completely cut. WHEW. TRADITION. GREAT. BRITAIN. Ah, so British. Even in its new Lane Bryant clothes the Mini Countryman is still trying to give a Johnny Rotten middle finger to convention by cramming its turbo in a place where no one can service it. In spite of its prepackaged punk appearance which includes a bonnet that envelops the headlamps, the Countryman is still conservative at heart and wants to sit you down in the study and tell you all about the war and how we all went through food rationing, you know. So British. The Countryman is not revolutionary because it still sticks to Mini's tradition of being whatever car its owner needed it to be within a certain set of parameters. See, England never had the Jeep CJ-5 but they did have the Mini and they made do. British! All the fuel gauge tells you is when you have half. Uhn, and toggle switches like a Lancaster bomber. The head unit boosts CDs, whatever that means. This Mini is four-wheel drive but its adoptive barbarian parents insist you trust their judgement – oh, you will get four-wheel drive when it's time and not before. Emergency brake is off of a pallet jack. The vents by the letter S go nowhere. Hey you get independent suspension all around, ehn... that's cool. Uuuh I want a man with a beeswax mustache to make me a cucumber sandwich and tell me about India. So British! Drape me in a Mackintosh and tell me about the BOER WAR! But by 2005 the Mini had become so iconic to the United States that the aesthetic of the vehicle had become part of our cultural lexicon as yankees despite bearing no resemblance to the regular car of its inception. The Mini prompted a love-hate relationship among car enthusiasts worldwide. Ah, so British! It seemed that there would be no more middle ground for perception on the Mini. Either it was an important step in the history of automotive evolution or it was the stubborn zit that arose when the auto industry forgot to wash its face after World War II. Its doubters were quick to point out that the car enjoys a privileged position over safety, reliability and compelling functionality while the car's defenders clung tight to its legend like passive-aggressive lovers locked in a mutual delusion about the validity of their relationship. The 2013 Mini Countryman Cooper S serves as a trophy to the inertia of its owners. Even as print journalism, record stores, book shops and the American mall died by the wayside, Mini endures like the skintight skeleton we've come to call Keith Richards. So British! Ah, let's sit arm-in-arm on your sofa, slow jerking it to VHS tapes of Desmond Morris WITH THE SOUND MUTED. --- OUTRO by MR REGULAR Oooh, real fart brewin'... Aaaghgh microphone cord. (squirt) Category:YouTube Partner Category:Reviews